The Wife's Lament

The Wife's Lament

The Middle Ages began around A.D. 500 and was a period of time that existed in Europe between Classical Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. It stretched throughout the centuries and historians believe it finally culminated around A.D. 1350, although speculation exists that it may have continued even longer.

Perhaps one of the most esoteric poems of this time is "The Wife's Lament." In this poem, the author is a woman whose husband has gone on a journey to some unknown place and, because he is no longer physically there to be with his wife, his family members have exiled her. From the context of the poem and its prologue, it is evident that the narrator has had an arranged marriage with her husband whom she describes as "her lord." The prologue mentions that the narrator was most likely a "peace-weaver," which, in medieval Anglo-Saxon culture, was a woman who was married off to make peace between warring tribes. This was a very common practice during the Middle Ages so it makes sense that her husband's family would contemn her and thus exile her upon his leaving.

An element of medieval Anglo-Saxon culture is clearly represented in this poem by the antonomastic overtone that the term, "my lord" brings. For example, the narrator states, "First [my lord] went away from his people here," then she later avers that, "[My lord] commanded me to stay in this place." The antonomasia found in these passages clearly connotes what many historians would consider as typical truckling of a medieval wife towards her husband. The antonomastic term, "my lord," also seems to exude a type of servile fealty that a wife would have for her husband during this time in Anglo-Saxon history.

This poem also seems to exude from it a great social conflict between women during the Middle Ages. One cannot help noticing that the narrator in this poem is inferior to her husband in every facet and it is almost as though she were his property more so than his wife. The narrator seems to be almost limned as that of a vassal or a serf from the different descriptions that are given in the poem. This is very consistent with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture because women were considered to have been put on this Earth by God to serve their husbands. Because of this precept that was embedded in the culture of this time, women were brought up to believe in this notion, thus, no matter what, they served their husbands well and accordingly until death did them part.

Furthermore, the reader can also get a sense from the poem that the narrator has married into a warrior cult and her husband has left her for some unknown reason. The narrator mentions in the poem that "her lord" has gone "across the storm-tossed sea." It may be that he has gone to conquer another land or fight in some great war, which, during the Middle Ages, was common practice throughout Anglo-Saxon culture.

The notion that this family that the narrator has married into may be a warrior cult is buttressed by the belief that the narrator is a peace-weaver. If she was a peace-weaver, then she was married to stifle a blood feud between the two exogamous families. Tensions between the narrator's family and "her lord's" family may still be extant, but occluded from sight while she and her lord are married and living together. The problem that exists now is that her lord has gone on this journey to some unknown place thus she is no longer being shielded by his aegis. Without her lord's aegis, she is at the mercy of his family members and therefore their true feelings towards her come out and they ostracize her to this place in the wilderness.

The reader can further picture the ostracism of the narrator when she describes disquietly that, "Endlessly I have suffered the wretchedness of exile" and then segues into how she now resides in an "earth-cave" in the wilderness. The narrator, in these lines, is expounding her coda to the reader. This is, in essence, the end-result she receives for all of her love, devotion, and fidelity she has had for her lord—the fact that she has now been exiled by his family to live out her days in this cave underneath an old oak tree. In medieval Anglo-Saxon culture, it was common practice for a family to blackball one of its estranged members, especially a peace-weaver when the husband had either died or gone somewhere such as off to war wherein it was very likely he would never return.

Furthermore, the connotation of a blood feud in this poem can be limned through the arranged marriage between the narrator and her lord. Since these are two separate warrior cults who are trying to create some semblance of peace between each other, the one cult has offered up a peace-weaver for betrothal to a male heir of the other warrior cult. Arranged marriages and blood feuds between exogamous families, particularly warrior cult families, were rampant throughout Anglo-Saxon culture during the Middle Ages. An arranged marriage was one way to end a blood feud between different families, but, many times, the hatred for the other family was still innate within each member; therefore many of these marriages were doomed from the start. It is apparent from this poem that the narrator's arranged marriage, which was an effort to create a rapprochement between the two warring families, has failed thus irreparably sundering the two families and inexorably reviving old tensions from the blood feud.

In the end, there are many elements of Anglo-Saxon culture and heritage that can be found in "The Wife's Lament." For instance, in the poem, the reader can see how a once doting wife seems to become nothing more than a flitting memory to her husband and his family and how, through all of her pain and persecution, through exile and enmity, the ever-faithful narrator still toadies to her missing husband—"her lord" for whom she forever weeps during her state of exile.